Читать книгу The Final Cut - Michael Dobbs - Страница 16

I regard being called a hypocrite as something of a compliment. It means I can see both sides of the question.

‘I hate memorial services. The cant. The falseness. The empty phrases and hollow praise. I hate memorial services.’

Urquhart was in one of those humours again. He had stamped impatiently as he had waited at the east door of St Margaret’s Church to be escorted by the rector, and his face had been set in stone while walking to his appointed pew, past the acquiescent, nodding faces with their spaniel smiles and synthetic sympathies worn above black ties and scarves. They had thought his countenance denoted sadness, distress at the loss of such a good friend and colleague as Freddie, Baron Warburton, and indeed his emotions were fractured, but not in pity for others.

The turbid mood had begun the previous night when he had opened his red box to discover that his press officer, thinking it might be appropriate, had enclosed a few of old Freddie’s obituaries. The bloody fool. Reading that Warburton’s passing marked ‘the end of an era’ and that he had been ‘the last of F.U.’s dirty dozen’ had done little to enhance the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm about either the press or his press officer.

‘Can’t stand it, Mortima. They hound a man into the grave then, soon as he’s dead and gone, reach for their sopping tissues and try to prove what a great man he was, how his loss somehow threatens culture, the country, civilization as a whole. The only reason I kept Freddie was because he followed like a lamb. Everybody knew that. But now he’s a dead lamb they speak of him as a lion. Not a single mention anywhere that his veins had been swept quite clear of blood by alcohol. Nor of that little tangle in Shepherd Market, when two ladies of the night abandoned him without either trousers, wallet or his Downing Street pass.’

‘He was loyal, Francis.’

‘I had his balls in a vice, Mortima, of course he was loyal!’ Urquhart brought himself to a sudden halt, closing his eyes. He’d gone too far. He should be used to honouring the dead at Westminster, there had been so many over the years, but such memories only brought out the worst in him. ‘Forgive me. That was unnecessary.’

‘Forgiven.’

‘It’s just that…what will they say about me, Mortima? When I’ve gone?’

‘That you were the greatest Prime Minister of the century. That you rewrote the record books as well as the law books. And lived a long and contented retirement.’

‘I doubt that. How many great leaders have ever truly found contentment in retirement?’

She searched for a name, but none came to her.

‘I don’t want to grow old and bitter, after all this has gone. I just don’t have a vision of myself retiring, being replaced. Ever.’ He waved a hand at her. ‘Oh, I know I’m being pathetic but…retirement for me isn’t filled with long summer evenings but endless nights dancing with ghosts. The ghosts of what might have been. And of what once was.’

‘I understand.’

‘Yes, I know you do. You’re the only one who does. I owe you so very much.’

She sat beside him now, in the church of St Margaret’s at Westminster, which stood in the lee of the great Abbey, as they listened to the choristers singing a plaintive anthem. Mortima’s eyes were fixed on the young treble soloist, a boy of perhaps twelve with fair hair falling across his forehead and the tender voice of an angel that filled the church like the rays of a new sun. What a difference it might have made, he considered, if they had been able to have children; it could have touched their lives with a sense of immortality and brought music to their souls. Yet it was not to be. She had bound the wound until it scarred and toughened, never complaining, though he knew the hurt at times cleaved her in two; instead she had invested all her emotional energy in him and his career. Their career, in truth, for without her he could not have succeeded or sustained. For Mortima it had been a barren crown, a sacrifice in many manners far deeper than death, and all for him. He owed her everything.

The choir had finished and she looked round at him, a fleeting softness in her eye that he knew brimmed with regret. How much easier retirement would be to contemplate, had they had children. Instead all they would leave behind them were a Library and the fickle judgement of history. Apres moi, rien. Once he had thought that would be enough but, as the years passed and mortality knocked, he was no longer sure.

‘Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men…’

Clerical hyperbole and half-truth, a momentary suspension of political life in the pews behind him while piously they honoured death and, like birds of prey, plotted more.

‘Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure…

Men sang such tunes in sleepy ritual then woke to ignore them so blithely. Yet, on the day of reckoning, what would be his own case? He suffered a pang of momentary doubt as ghosts crowded into the shadows of his mind, but then he was clear, as he had always been. That what he had done was not for himself, but for others, for his country. That the affairs of men require sacrifices to be made, and that the sacrifices which he had made had always been motivated by public and national interest. Sacrifice of others, to be sure, sometimes in blood, but had not he and Mortima made sacrifices of their own, two lives devoted to one cause in the service of others?

‘…that all things may be so ordered and settled by their endeavours, upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us for all generations.’

Crap. Life was like setting sail in a sieve upon a wild and disorderly sea. Most people got sick, many drowned.

‘In silence, let us remember Frederick Archibald St John Warburton.’

Best damned way to remember the man. In complete bloody silence. But it was not the way Urquhart intended to go.

‘Thy will be done on earth…’

And there he drew the line. No, that was not good enough, never had been good enough for Urquhart. Some men used morality as a crutch, an excuse – always the men who failed and achieved nothing. Morality was not the way through the swamp but the swamp itself, waiting to ensnare you, bind your limbs, drag you under. Great empires had not been built or sustained on such poor footings, or the British people protected from the plottings of envious foreigners by prayer. In the end, those who honoured weakness were weak themselves. A great man was judged by how high he climbed, not by how long he could remain on his knees.

When the time came, he would not go in silence, he would depart with so much clamour that it would echo through the ages. Francis Urquhart would be master of his own fate.

‘Amen.’

Geoffrey Booza-Pitt revealed an unusual degree of self-consciousness as he faced his Prime Minister across the desk of the Downing Street study, hands clasped together, knuckles showing white and a smile seeming painted and fixed. It was not unusual for him to seek a private audience and, within limits, Urquhart encouraged it; Geoffrey was a notorious gossip and adept at stealing others’ ideas, which he could either claim as his own or abandon with ridicule depending on the reception given to them by his master. He was without personal doubt or hesitation the finest ankle-tapper in the Cabinet, displaying fastidious team loyalty in public while dextrous at sending his colleagues sprawling in front of goal, usually clipping them from the blind side and always with an expression of pained innocence. A useful source of information and amusement for Urquhart, who relished the sport.

Urquhart had assumed that Booza-Pitt would be laying the ground for a change of responsibility at the next reshuffle. Geoffrey was a young man constantly on the move; ever since he had kicked open the door of the pen with a series of brilliant pyrotechnic displays at party conference he had proved impossible to pin down to any job or, for those who had memories for such things, to any guiding political principle. But in that he was not unique, and his effervescent energy, which is the hallmark of some slightly undersized men, more than made up for any lack of depth in the eyes of most observers. Geoffrey was going places – he left no listener in any doubt of the fact and such enthusiasm to many is infectious. And it was no secret around Westminster that Geoffrey would welcome a new job. As Transport Secretary for the last two years, he had long since grown exasperated with the futility of trying to siphon twentieth-century cars through London’s nineteenth-century road system and desperately wanted to escape the gridlock for some new challenge – any new challenge, so long as it came in the form of perceptible promotion. Move on before you grow roots and others grow bored was the Booza-Pitt rule, a creed he followed as much in love as in politics. He’d already scraped through two marriages; his ribald and envious colleagues referred to his Westminster house as the In & Out Club. Geoffrey’s response had been to make a dubious virtue of necessity and to eschew further matrimonial entanglement, instead choosing his companions on an à la carte basis from the lengthy menu provided by the women of Westminster. Being single, it merely enhanced the dynamic impression.

Yet in the subdued lighting of Urquhart’s study, the Transport Secretary belied his image. The neatly trimmed sandy hair had tumbled across his forehead, the eyes cast down, the broad and slightly crooked chin which normally afforded an aura of rugged athleticism tonight looked simply askew. A schoolboy come to confess.

‘Geoffrey, dear boy. What news do you bring from the battle front? Are we winning?’ He laid aside the gold-ribbed fountain pen with which he had been signing letters, forcing Booza-Pitt to wait, and suffer.

‘Polls seem to be…not too bad too bad.’

‘Could be better.’

‘Will be.’

Urquhart studied the other man. The eyes were rimmed in red, he thought he could detect the bite of whisky on his breath. Trouble.

‘Come to the point, Geoffrey.’

There was no resistance; his composure drained and the shoulders drooped. ‘I’ve got…a little local difficulty, FU.’

‘Women.’

‘Is it that obvious?’

The Minister was known to be a man of modest intellect and immoderate copulation; Urquhart had assumed it was only a matter of time before he stubbed his toe in public. ‘In this business, it’s always either women or money – at least in our party.’ He leaned forward in a gesture of paternal familiarity, encouraging confession. ‘She wasn’t dead, was she? Almost anything can be smoothed over, except for live animals and dead women.’

‘No, of course not! But it’s…more complicated than that.’

More than a stubbed toe – a broken leg, perhaps? Amputation might be called for. ‘Well, so far we have one – one? – live woman. Tell me more.’

‘The chairman of my local party is going to divorce his wife on the grounds of adultery, citing me.’

‘It is true, I assume.’

Booza-Pitt nodded, his hands still clasped between his knees as though defending his manhood from the enraged husband.

‘Embarrassing. Might make it difficult to get yourself reselected for the next election with him in the chair.’

Booza-Pitt sighed deeply and rapidly several times, expelling the air forcefully as though attempting to extirpate demons within.

‘He says he’s not going to be there. He’s very bitter. Plans to resign from the party and go to the newspapers with the story.’

‘A tangled web indeed.’

‘And make all sorts of ridiculous allegations.’ This was almost blurted. Control of his breathing had gone.

‘That you seduced her…’

‘And that I got her to invest money in property on my behalf.’

‘So?’

‘Property that was blighted by proposed road-building schemes.’

‘Let me guess. Schemes which were about to be cancelled. Scrapped. So lifting the blight and greatly increasing the value of the property. Inside information known only to a handful of people. Including the Secretary of State for Transport. You.’

The lack of response confirmed Urquhart’s suspicions.

‘Christ, Geoffrey, you realize that would be a matter for not only resignation, but also criminal prosecution.’

He wriggled like a worm on a hook. Piranha bait. Urquhart left him dangling as he considered. To convict or to assist, punish or protect? He had just buried one Cabinet member, to bury a second in such rapid succession could look more than unfortunate. He swivelled his pen on the blotter in front of him, like a compass seeking direction.

‘You can assure me that these accusations are false?’

‘Lies, all lies! You have my word.’

‘But I assume there are land registry deeds and titles with dates that to the cynical eye will appear to be more than coincidence. How did she know?’

‘Pillow talk, perhaps, no more than that. I…I may have left my Ministerial box open in her bedroom on one occasion.’

Urquhart marvelled at the younger man’s inventiveness. ‘You know as well as I do, Geoffrey, that if this comes out they won’t believe you. They’ll hound you right up the steps of the Old Bailey.’

The fountain pen was now pointed directly at Booza-Pitt, like an officer’s sword at a court martial, in condemnation. Urquhart produced a sheet of writing paper which he laid alongside it. ‘I want you to write me a letter, Geoffrey, which I shall dictate.’

Awkwardly, with the movements of a man freezing in the Arctic desert, Booza-Pitt began to write:

‘“Dear Prime Minister,”’ Urquhart began. ‘“I am sorry to have to inform you that I have been having an affair with a married woman, the wife of the chairman of my local association…”’

Geoffrey raised pleading eyes, but Urquhart nodded him on.

‘“Moreover, she has accused me of using confidential information available to me as a Government Minister to trade in blighted property and enrich myself, in breach not only of Ministerial ethics but also of the criminal law. New paragraph, Geoffrey. “While I have given you my word of honour that these accusations are utterly without foundation, in light of these allegations…”’

Booza-Pitt paused to raise a quizzical brow.

‘“I have no alternative other than to tender my resignation.”’

The death warrant. A sob of misery bounced across the desk.

‘Sign it, Geoffrey.’ The pen had become an instrument of punishment. ‘But don’t date it.’

A dawning of hope, a stay of execution. Booza-Pitt did as he was told, managed a smile. Urquhart retrieved the paper, examined it thoroughly, and slid it into the drawer of his desk. Then his voice sank to a whisper, like a vault expelling the last of its air.

‘You contemptible idiot! How dare you endanger my Government with your sordid little vices? You’re not fit to participate in a Francis Urquhart Cabinet.’

‘I’m so dreadfully sorry. And appreciative…’

‘I created you. Made a space for you at the trough.’

‘Always grateful…’

‘Never forget.’

‘Never shall. But…but, Francis. What are we going to do about my chairman?’

‘I may, just possibly, be able to save your life. What’s his name?’

‘Richard Tennent.’

‘Have I ever met him?’

‘Last year, when you came to my constituency. He chewed your ear about grants for tourism.’

Slowly, without taking his eyes off Booza-Pitt, Urquhart reached for his phone. ‘Get me a Mr Richard Tennent. New Spalden area.’

And they waited in silence. It took less than two minutes for the operator to make the connection.

‘Mr Tennent? This is Francis Urquhart at Downing

Street. Do you remember we met last year, had that delightful discussion about tourism? Yes, you put the case very well. Look, I wanted to have an entirely confidential word with you, if you’re agreeable. Bit unorthodox, but I have a problem. Did you know that you’ve been put up for an honour, for your political and public service?’

Evidently not.

‘No, you shouldn’t have known, these things are supposed to be confidential. That’s why I wanted an entirely private word. You see, I’ve just been going through the list and, to be frank, after what you’ve done for the party I thought you deserved something a little better. A knighthood, in fact. Trouble is, there’s a strict quota and a bit of a waiting list. I very much want you to have the “K”, Mr Tennent, but it would mean your waiting perhaps another eighteen months. You can have the lesser gong straight away, though, if you like.’

The voice dripped goodwill while his eyes lashed coldly across Booza-Pitt, who showed little sign of being able to breathe.

‘You’d prefer to wait. I entirely understand. But you realize that this must remain utterly confidential until then. Won’t stop you and Lady Tennent attending a Downing Street reception in the meantime, though? Good.’

A tight smile of triumph.

‘One last thing. These things get pushed through a Scrutiny Committee, look at each individual case to make sure there are no skeletons in the closet, nothing that might prove a public embarrassment, cause the honour to be handed back or any such nonsense. Forgive my asking, but since your name will be carrying my personal recommendation, there’s nothing on the horizon that might…?’

A pause.

‘Delighted to hear that. I must just repeat that if anything were to leak out about your upcoming award…But then the party has always known it can rely on you. Sir Richard, I am most grateful.’

He chuckled as he threw the phone back into its cradle. ‘There you are! The old Round Table gambit always works; give ’em a knighthood and a sense of purpose and they always come aboard. With luck that’ll keep his mouth shut for at least another eighteen months and possibly for good.’

Geoffrey had just begun to imitate the Prime Minister’s bonhomie when Urquhart turned on him with unmistakable malevolence. ‘Now get out. And don’t ever expect me to do that again.’

Geoffrey rose, a tremble still evident in his knees. ‘Why did you, Francis, this time?’

The light from the desk lamp threw harsh shadows across Urquhart’s face, bleaching from it any trace of vitality. One eye seemed almost to have been plucked out, leaving a hollowed socket that led straight to a darkness within.

‘Because Francis Urquhart and only Francis Urquhart is going to decide when Ministers come and go from his Cabinet, not some shrivelling cuckold from New Spalden.’

‘I understand.’ He had been hoping for some acknowledgement of his own irreplaceable worth.

‘And because now I own you. Today, tomorrow, and for as long as I wish. You will jump whenever I flick my fingers, whether it be at the throats of our enemies or into your own grave. Without question. Total loyalty.’

‘Of course, Francis. You had that anyway.’ He turned to leave.

‘One last thing, Geoffrey.’

‘Yes?’

‘Give me back my fountain pen.’